So, I’m thinking about making something very radical for me - a Law Dogs legal deck! gasp
(for those who don’t know me, in real life I’ve always been someone to empathise with the underdog, mutant, outcast and witchy types - which is why I’ve usually shied away from any “lawful” feeling decks).
But anyway, now I’m looking at trying something different, and creating a deck built around having a legal hand. Presumably a flush or full house most likely, although a straight flush would be ideal in those rare times. Since you’d naturally need to have a bit of a diluted deck, and certainly can’t go for a simple 16x3 deck, or something similar, my thinking is it’d have to limit itself to only five different values, and aiming for around 10 of each (except perhaps the starting posse). That’s my current thinking.
Also, the deck would ideally be aimed at punishing cheating (since it’s legal itself), have ways to make its hand legal or change values (if only I could use Ghostly Gun!) and ideally have a lot of abilities that increase bounty or work with bounty. My thinking is primarily a deputy deck, perhaps also with some blessed in it.
Does anyone have any thoughts, recommendations on such an endeavour? @jordan_caldwell
Search the dtdb for Mad_max’s Worlds deck if you want an example of a good, classic, straight flush law dogs deck.
Personally, I’d look at Hattie DeLore as a starter, if I were to build a “punishing” LD deck.
Having lots of bullets have often proven the most reliable way of pulling a Straight Flush, so perhaps gadgets could be a feasible way to go?
@jordan_caldwell Cheers! Just got home from work. I’ll come up with some answers shortly.
@Benni I can’t seem to find a player by the name of Mad_Max. You don’t have a link for him by any chance? Yeah, I’m thinking Hattie and Sister Mary would be two. I’ll come up with a more detailed response shortly.
Yes please, I really would like a home.
So, my preferred home would be Justice in Exile. That’s really the only one that really sings to me, and the ability to just hand out bounty regularly is pretty cool. So, as far as dudes go, I really like both Wendy versions, Hattie, Janosz, Tolarios, of course Thunder Boy, both Lucys, Wylie Jenks. I’d really like a deck that works off Erin Knight to a degree, but then she costs way too much for a starting dude, and I think her value is too low to get a lot of the decent dudes (such as the J-Ks).
I think Thunder Boy, Hattie or the original Lucinda would be ideal cards for my opening posse (I mean, I probably wouldn’t have all three, as that would result in very low opening bullets, and 2 upkeep). Lucy would probably be the best starter, as it’d allow me to potentially get lots of bounty at right from the first or second day.
Essential strategy would be having lots of cards that work off bounty and cheatin’ resolution. Cards that make someone a stud if the opponent has bounty, cards that can be used on bounty dudes, etc. Ideally most of my cheatin’ cards would be cheatin’ and normal resolution, so that I can use them whether the opponent cheats or not (albeit to a lesser extent). Ultimately, I’d probably need a fairly decent spread of bullets across the board, as my opponents often play Unprepared. I also want to have strong influence. My main opponents generally play fairly mobile decks, so I want a deck that wouldn’t necessarily be able to compete with their mobility, but would at least have the ability to take deeds with a single dude much of the time. I imagine it’d likely be a shootout deck too.
Skill-wise, I am thinking of going for a bit of mad science and blessed, although it might be a bit much to go for both and cards that work with bounty. I think Gambler’s Gun is probably ideal for this deck too. The Decimator array looked good, although it looks too situational. However, most of the cards I wanted generally had around a 6 or 5 skill pull.
Structure. Well, that’s one of the big things I’m unsure of. Do you recommend trying to go for 6 values, perhaps 8 of each value, with the aim of getting flushes? I imagine I’ll need a number of cards that give me wild card bonuses though?
I hope that’s enough (but not too much!) for you to go off?
@jordan_caldwell Oh, one card I do really like is Fiery Rhetoric. That being said, taking that would really bring my card sequence down to low values. Although, if I did ever manage to pull it off, it’d have the ability to really swing the tide in my favour (or force everyone off my deeds to challenge the job).
My main question if you want to use a bounty-focused strategy but also play Justice In Exile is, how often do your opponents’ decks cheat? This is important for lowball as well as shootouts, since several of the cards that interact with bounty require bounties on the board to exploit outside of shootouts. If it’s often then you’re probably okay with just Justice in Exile. If not then you’ll probably need some alternative method of bounty generation like Stewart Davidson to keep up a steady flow of them, or switch to the Law Dogs home instead.
One cool thing about Justice In Exile in multiplayer games is that the trait to place bounty on opposing dudes can trigger during shootouts that you aren’t involved in, however the opposing player(s) will always get to choose which dude gets the bounty.
@Doomdog Thanks for that! Hmmm… Do you know much about the success of that deck? Looking at it, as a newbie, it doesn’t look like it’d have been all that effective - there doesn’t seem to be much synergy, and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere near enough cards matching the flush values. Definitely not a straight flush. Neither are there any cards that change the values of the flush. But then, as I said, I’m a newbie, so maybe there are things I’m overlooking. It is tagged as the 2018 world champion after all…
Oh yeah, I definitely plan on having more bounty dealing cards. Things like Lucy Clover, Evenezer Springfield, Riorden O’Lithen, Yaple, and Stewart are all cards I’m pondering. Along with Consecration. Yeah, that’s exactly the appeal of Justice in Exile for me - that it can sit there working and dealing out bounty even when I’m not actually involved in the shootout.
I was the guy Max (@DeputyWay) beat in the final to win that World Championship With a two value structure on 2s and 4s with a backup Straight Flush on clubs, it’s able to play aggressively and packs a lot of punishing bullet reducing cards. In the final shootout this really stung, I was one card off a Dead Man’s Hand, but was lacking draw hand bonuses due to my bullets taking several hits. After the shootout the game was over and I flipped my top card to reveal the missing DMH piece! The high level of bullet reduction generally makes opponents more likely to have to cheat in a shootout to form a decent hand which is then punished by Tommy Harden and the various Cheatin’ Resolutions.
@Bojangles So, would you like to discuss a deck built around closing the game with Fiery Rhetoric?
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[burnmasterclass] Regarding @DeputyWay - he is undisputedly among the best “Pilots” on the planet but I am unconvinced about his original deck-building ((and deck-naming!)) skills until such a time as he constructs another with which he is able to pull similar consistency with…[/burnmasterclass]
Hmmmm… I am a little concerned about using that as one of the main values (I think it was 3?), since a lot of the great dudes are in the picture values. However, it is incredibly appealing to try that! It does sound like an incredible card when it works. So, yes! Let’s!
Is that quote suggesting that his deck isn’t so great, but he’s incredible at using what he has? That’s how I read it anyway
A card certainly does not need to fit a certain value to be a Starting Impetus card. (That is more a question for latter steps). Nor does a card need to show up x4 times to justify a deck being built around it.
Choosing Fiery Rhetoric will give us a goal that we can use the other steps to try to accomplish, is all.
And yes, because the Difficulty > Value of the card by a significant margin, that will set certain parameters, and while not altogether unworkable in the slightest, will likely mean either running fewer than 4 copies, running high skill dudes, and/or running multiple “search” effects.
The value of it I’m not terribly worried about, if I have to fail a pull that’s good! And I’m planning on Tolarios as a starting dude, so that’ll give me one searchable card at least
An excellent idea. And Tolarios is great at fetching the Miracle when you need it. One way of getting TS for yourself could be to run 5s with Pistol Whip to boot dudes home (and Sentinel for additional CP). Or perhaps 10s for Someone else’s Problem and all the other goodies 10s have to offer? Or both! Hehe.
If Fiery Retoric is your “weapon of choice”, I’d consider starting the original home ones more for consistent bounties.
To supply a parameter to that question, we’ll probably need to determine our Skill Floor (step 3) here, which, if you are committing to protecting Father Tolarios, your Skill Floor is probably “4” (He is a Blessed: 2 Dude). If you would rather retain a contingency plan - wherein a “Blessed: 1” or “Blessed: 0” could step up to replace Tolarios in the event your opponent captures him - your Skill Floor becomes “5” or “6” respectively (because the difficulty of Fiery Rhetoric is 6).
(It’s notable that Fiery Rhetoric, a card with a value of 3, itself will violate this Skill Floor, and that that is an acceptable margin for error).
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If you want to look into @Benni’s suggestions above, consider looking at the Dudes and Deeds on 5 and 10, to see if those are the sorts of cards you’d like to populate your deck with.
@Benni@jordan_caldwell Thanks a lot! I’ll have a good look at the cards when I get home! Do you reckon aim for a flush, or full house? I was thinking the Justice outfit rather then Law Dogs because I mostly play with 3 players, and we get at least one cheating hand each day.
For me, Law Dogs gives you an advantage in that you’ll get to choose where the bounty goes, so you can ensure it’s spread out across dudes, plus you can reliably generate at least one per day. 1 extra starting ghost rock is nice to have too.
